Moloka'i

by Alan Brennert

  At 8:30 A.M. half of Kalaupapa was still asleep as the other half readied for church. As Rachel skirted the stony garland of cemeteries north of town she heard from somewhere up ahead—the Church of Latter-Day Saints was the closest structure—the tinny music of a radio broadcast, a chorus of angelic voices raised in song.

  “Gird up your loins; fresh courage take;

  Our God will never us forsake,

  And soon we’ll have this tale to tell,

  All is well! All is well!”

  The voices, she would later learn, were those of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, recorded in Salt Lake City and now being broadcast on KGMB in Honolulu. But even as she passed the church—its parishioners gathering in anticipation of the 9:00 service—the chorus was suddenly choked off, silenced by a burst of static, followed by the urgent voice of an announcer.

  “This is Webley Edwards in Honolulu. A sporadic air attack has been made on O'ahu. Enemy planes have been shot down, and the Rising Sun sighted on the wingtips!”

  All conversation among the parishioners ceased.

  “This is no maneuver!” the announcer barked out. Rachel had never before heard such emotion in a voice coming over the airwaves. “This is the real McCoy!”

  The congregation, joined now by Rachel and Hku, clustered around the radio in disbelief. A church deacon, perhaps fearing he was being taken in by some sort of dramatic program, flipped the dial over to Honolulu’s other radio station, KGU, but there too he heard, “Repeat, we are under attack! Do not use the phone, stay off the streets! Keep calm, the situation is under control!”

  Even more disturbing than the rush of words from the none-too-calm announcer were the muffled echoes of what sounded like explosions in the background.

  “My God,” someone said. “My God.”

  Rachel hurried home with Hku, woke Kenji, and turned on their own radio set in time to hear, “All Army, Navy, and Marine personnel report to duty!” All over Kalaupapa the rasp of distant men urged calm and discouraged panic, but the anxiety in their voices belied their message.

  “Get off the roads and stay off!”

  “Don’t block traffic!”

  “Stay at home!”

  David Kamakau hurried to the house, breathless from more than just exertion. “Jesus Christ,” he said, rushing up the porch steps and through their open door. “What the hell is it? Are we being invaded?”

  “Either that,” Rachel said, “or Orson Welles is at it again.” Within minutes other friends and neighbors—Hokea, Ehu, even Gabe Crossen and Felicia—had joined them, listening in stunned silence to the news from Honolulu.

  “Here is a warning to all people through the Territory of Hawai'i and especially on the island of O'ahu. In the event of an air raid, stay under cover. Many of the wounded have been hurt by falling shrapnel from anti-aircraft guns. If an air raid should begin, do not go out of doors. Stay under cover. You may be seriously injured or instantly killed by shrapnel falling from anti-aircraft shells!”

  Felicia asked, “But who’s attacking? Whose planes?”

  Crossen spat out, “Who else? The goddamn Japs.”

  Kenji kept his gaze fixed on the radio as he switched back and forth between channels.

  “Anyone owning a truck or a motorcycle is asked to drive it at once to your local first aid station!”

  “All Army, Navy, and Marine personnel report to duty!”

  “United States Army intelligence has ordered that all civilians stay off the streets. Get your car off the street. Drive it onto the lawn if necessary, but get it off the street! Do not use your telephone—”

  “All doctors, nurses, and volunteer personnel report at once to Queens Hospital!”

  “Fill all buckets and tubs with water, to be ready for a possible fire. Attach your garden hoses. Keep your radio turned on for further news. . . .”

  What became apparent was this: Japanese bombers were laying siege to Pearl Harbor, Kne'ohe Naval Air Station, Hickam Field, and 'Ewa Marine Air Corps Station. In addition, it seemed that Honolulu itself was taking some direct hits, though it wasn’t clear how much of that was the result of enemy bombs and how much due to the anti-aircraft shrapnel the stations were so urgently warning of.

  Hokea said, “This is crazy. Since when we been at war with Japan?”

  Most of the listeners’ faces were drained of color, but Gabe Crossen’s was flush with rage.

  “It’s a sneak attack,” he said coldly. “Goddamn Jap cowards didn’t even bother to declare war!”

  No one was inclined to dispute the point.

  For the next hour and a half they listened to the sporadic reports coming out of Honolulu; in between announcements church music played, as in the background could be heard a rumble that was not thunder and the frantic shuffling of furniture as radio staff presumably secured windows and doors.

  At 11:15 A.M., Governor Joseph Poindexter came on the air on KGU to declare a state of emergency.

  His voice trembling, the seventy-two-year-old governor repeated admonitions to stay calm, to stay home, to not use the telephone. As he was finishing up he stopped in mid-sentence, then said, “I’ve just been handed a message . . . General Short is ordering Hawaii’s radio stations to shut down immediately, for fear the Japanese will home in on our broadcast.”

  To the astonishment of all listening the governor began to weep. “We are going off the air for the first time,” he said, clearly a man under great strain. “We have been under attack and the sign of the Rising Sun has been plainly seen on the underside of the planes.”

  The governor was hurried off the air and at exactly 11:41 A.M. the radio fell silent.

  That silence was more frightening than the panicky voices and muted explosions. “Try the police channels,” David suggested, but as Kenji adjusted the short-wave set the flashes that came in were hardly reassuring:

  “Investigate Japanese at 781 Sunset Avenue”

  “Proceed to St. Louis Heights, parachutists supposed to have landed”

  “Arrest that man! Bring him down here—he’s an impostor”

  Also faintly heard through static and space were even more alarming, and confusing, bursts from military radios:

  “Enemy transports reported four miles off Barber’s Point”

  “Parachute troops landing on North Shore”

  “Enemy sampan about to land at Naval ammunition depot”

  “Enemy landing party offshore Nnkuli—friendly planes firing on them”

  None of these reports turned out to have merit, but the people of Kalaupapa had no way of knowing that just now. Fed up with the conflicting, chaotic broadcasts, Rachel announced, “Damn it! I’m gonna see for myself,” and to general bafflement hurried out of the house.

  “Where in the hell are you going?” David asked.

  “Kauhak,” she called back. Everyone understood at once—those who couldn’t squeeze into Kenji and Rachel’s Packard found other transportation, and followed her up Damien Road.

  Leaving their autos at the foot of the Kauhak trail, they followed her along the barely-visible path now completely overgrown with lantana scrub. Despite their various handicaps they all managed to climb up onto the crater lip, standing at the summit of this highest point on the peninsula—and looked out across the sea, looked north.

  Rachel’s breath caught in her chest.

  Only twenty-six miles away, the island of O'ahu lay on the horizon; but none of them had ever seen it like this before. Enormous columns of smoke rose from the tip of the island that was Honolulu, obscuring the harbor and most of the city. Much of the smoke was blacker than a stormcloud, but there also were pillars of gray, brown, yellow, and white straddling the horizon. Licks of flame danced on the water as though the ocean itself were afire—which they later discovered was the case, oil from the shattered naval vessels having spilled and ignited. It was impossible to tell, through the clouds of smoke eclipsing the city, how much of Honolulu survived; for all they knew it could be in ruins, b
roken to bits by Japanese bombs.

  Rachel, Kenji, David, Hokea, Crossen, all of them stood in stunned, horrified silence, unable to take their eyes off the catastrophe written in the clouds. Rachel’s eyes welled with tears as she wondered if her family was there, dead or alive, behind the evil-looking smoke. And then an even more horrifying thought: Ruth. Was their daughter there on O'ahu, was she hearing the shrill of bombs falling to earth? Had one found and shattered the shelter of her home? As if reading her mind Kenji reached out and took her hand, and from his tight grip and the tears in his eyes Rachel knew that they shared the same fear, the same uncertain dread.

  And then—strangely—they were startled to hear the silence broken not by a cry or a curse or a sob, but by the sound of a voice raised in song. Rachel turned, even more surprised to discover it was Crossen. He stood gazing into the distance with eyes shadowed by grief and impotence, something like a dirge spilling out of him, his voice so soft he might have been singing it to himself.

  “Day is done, gone the sun

  From the lakes, from the hills,

  From the skies—”

  Rachel recognized the melody, if not the words; they all did. All eyes went to the young sailor singing “Taps.”

  “All is well, safely rest

  God is nigh . . .”

  In the distance the water burned, as black fingers of smoke groped helplessly at the sky.

  ______

  A

  t 4:25 that afternoon, the commercial radio stations went briefly back on the air to announce that martial law had been declared throughout the Territory of Hawai'i; the self-styled military governor was Major General Walter C. Short. Almost everyone expected an imminent invasion, or at least further bombing, and defensive measures were immediately put into effect. Nightly blackouts, a curfew, the issuing of ID cards and gas masks to everyone in the territory, all these actions were seen as prudent and necessary. Less applauded was the suspension of civil law—the U.S. justice system replaced by military justice, civil judges by military provosts—and of elections.

  That first night saw people throughout the territory eating dinner in the dark, forbidden to light so much as a candle to guide forks to their mouths. In Kalaupapa this could be downright dangerous, as a stubbed toe or an unnoticed cut could lead to gangrene. Those residents who possessed flashlights and a little blue cellophane could at least see their hands in front of them, as illumination in the blue spectrum was permitted. When it became clear that blackouts were here for the duration, residents and staff lined the inside of their windows with tar paper or painted the glass black on the outside. Cantankerous Abelardo was appointed “blackout warden,” mainly because no one else wanted the job, and delighted in descending upon residents whose keyholes were emitting even a flicker of visible light and levying stiff fines. For the first time at Kalaupapa, the sound of a plane passing overhead was no longer a cause for celebration.

  Yet the war brought unexpected joy to the settlement as well. In recent years the number of children in Kalaupapa had steadily declined as the Board of Hospitals and Settlement chose to keep more young leprosy patients at Kalihi, closer to friends and family. But now, fearing further attacks on Honolulu, the Board decided the children might be safer at Kalaupapa. In March of 1942, twelve girls and twenty boys shipped out at the furtive hour of four in morning aboard the SS Hawai'i, bound for Moloka'i.

  When the children arrived they found themselves the puzzled recipients of more love and attention than they had ever dreamed of. Kalaupapans, delighted to hear the laughter of keiki again, spoiled them mercilessly, buying them candy and ice cream, treats and toys. There were birthday parties and l'aus and trips to the beach; the children went fishing, explored sea caves, played softball and volleyball, learned to ride horses.

  Rachel found herself spending more time helping Sister Catherine—at seventy the eldest sister at the convent, stubbornly resisting retirement as she helped train a new generation of Franciscans—at Bishop Home. Given her infirmities Rachel couldn’t do much manual labor, but she had no lack of energy or strength to play croquet with the girls on the convent lawn, or to read aloud from L. Frank Baum and Jack London. At one such reading, which took place on the beach with children from both Bishop and McVeigh Homes, a ten-year-old boy named Freddie asked Rachel hopefully, “Do you have any comic books?”

  Rachel blinked. “ ‘Comic’ books? What are they?”

  “They’re like the funny pages in the Sunday paper,” another boy explained, “except in a magazine.”

  “I can show you!” Freddie announced, racing back to McVeigh Home and returning a few minutes later with an impressive stack of magazines under his arm, which he handed to Rachel. Every title was an exclamation promising adventure and excitement: Whiz Comics, Thrilling Comics, Smash Comics, More Fun Comics, Amazing Mystery Funnies, Crackajack Funnies, Slam-Bang Comics, Wow Comics, Sensation Comics, Pep and Prize and Jackpot and Top-Notch. The glossy covers were populated by a wondrous cast of characters: hawk-winged birdmen swooping out of the sky, muscled strongmen lifting cars, men made of fire, men made of rubber, spectral figures cowled in green, turbaned swamis with magic wands. In gaudy costumes they squared off against leering gargoyles, evil doctors, murderous cavemen, Grim Reapers, rampaging mummies, fiery rockets, Nazi tanks and Japanese Zeros.

  “Ah,” Rachel said, “I see. Heroes and magic. I know some stories like that.” She asked the children, “Have you ever heard of a hero named Mui?”

  A boy objected, “Maui’s an island, not a hero!”

  “Oh? Where do you think they got the name for the island?”

  “Mui was a real person?” a girl asked.

  “He was more than a person. He was the son of a goddess, Hina, and a mortal man, so he was half-human and half something more than human.”

  “Like the Sub-Mariner,” Freddie observed sagely.

  “Mui was what they call a ‘trickster’ because he used his wits as well as his mana, his power. And because he was a little mischievous. Like the time he turned his brother into a dog.”

  “My brother’s already a dog,” a girl said, and everyone laughed.

  “According to legend, when the world was new the sky and the clouds rested on top of the earth. They pressed down so heavily that when the first plants began to grow, their leaves were flat.”

  A boy nodded soberly. “That makes sense.”

  “When trees started to grow they pushed the sky up farther—enough that the human race could now walk upright. But the skies were still much lower than they are now. One of Mui’s first great deeds was to lift up the sky. He braced himself against the top of the clouds and pushed, pushed the heavens up to where they are today.

  “Also back then, the nights were longer than the days; the sun moved too quickly through the skies. There was hardly time to dry kapa cloth—it had to be taken up at night and put out the next day again. So Mui fashioned ropes of green flax and used them to snare the sun, forcing it to move more slowly across the sky.”

  A girl looked skeptical. “Why didn’t the ropes burn?”

  “The greener a plant, the harder it is to burn.” The girl seemed placated by this cunning use of science.

  “Did Mui ever fight anybody like Hitler?” Freddie asked, impatient to get to the action. “Or the Red Skull?”

  “Oh, he had many great battles,” Rachel assured him. “For instance against Pe'ape'a, the Eight-Eyed Bat.” This quickly captured their attention. “Mui had been fishing along the shore of O'ahu when he looked up and saw his wife Kumulama in the grip of a horrible creature—a huge bat with eight terrible eyes, which had seized his wife in teeth like razors and carried her aloft. Mui dove into the sea after it, but the creature was too fast and Mui had to turn back, weeping, as the eight-eyed bat carried Kumulama to a distant island.

  “Heartsick, Mui went to a wise old kahuna, who told him to gather tree limbs, thick vines, and the feathers of many birds. Mui did this, and from the tree limbs the kahuna
fashioned the hollow skeleton of a giant bird, then covered it in feathers. The vines were attached to the bird’s wings, and when Mui climbed inside and pulled on the vines, the wings flapped—and with Mui’s great strength as a motor, the bird took flight!

  “Mui piloted the flying machine—the first in the whole world!—to the island of the bat. It was a beautiful island, but Pe'ape'a was its ruler—its dictator, like Hirohito—” The keiki booed and hissed. “—and when Mui landed he was captured by the bat’s people. They imprisoned him in a cage and took him to their ruler, who rejoiced that he had captured such a mighty warrior.

  “Mui waited until the bat became drowsy, watching as first one eye, then another, and another, closed in sleep. When the eighth eye drooped shut, Mui quietly freed himself from the box and, wielding a huge blade, he cut off the bat’s head with one swipe!” Rachel swung her hand in a wide arc and made a whooshing sound. Her listeners cheered, but the best was yet to come.

  “Now very angry at what was done to his wife, Mui gouged out the bat’s eight eyes and had its people make them into 'awa—a kind of bathtub gin usually made from kava root. And do you know how 'awa used to be made?” They all shook their heads. “People used to chew the kava root, then spit it out and strain it. So the Pe'ape'a’s people chewed his eyes and spit them out, and then Mui drank the 'awa made from the bat’s eight eyes!”

  This was greeted by a chorus of cheers, gasps, Wows and Yeahs, from boys and girls alike.

  “And then,” Rachel finished triumphantly, “Mui flew back to O'ahu with his wife at his side.” She turned to the boy who’d expressed doubt about the trickster hero. “And that’s why they named the island of Maui after him.”